I just saw a tweet by Dan Diamond from politico that was retweeted by Nick Hanauer bragging about how under Obama, private sector employment has grown by 11.5 million jobs and under Bush it shrank by 300K jobs. Of course, what the partisan hacks ignore is the other side of the ledger, just like they always do.
Is adding 11 million jobs good or bad? It depends on the workforce denominator of course, which they never mention, so I will.
According to Fred, the 15-64 yr old "working population" grew from 180M in Jan 2001 to approx. 205M at present.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
Thats 25 million more people in the working age population of which maybe 20 million need a job.
About 8.5 million during the Obama years and 16.5 million during the Bush years. or a net change in the the jobs\working age population ratio of -17 million under Bush and +3 million under Obama.
Why would this be something to brag about for Dems and Obama then? Why arent people out on the streets protesting that our so-called exceptional American economy has somehow managed to destroy the jobs to worker population ratio by some 14 million units in 15 years? We've fallen behind at the rate of almost 1 million jobs per year and yet twitter is agog with ignorant Dem hacks congratulating Obama that the jobs number went up by 153K in December when you need a minimum of 80k new jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. Even at 180K new jobs per month (100K net jobs\population increase), it will take 9 more years to get back to even relative to our jobs\population situation in the year 2000. Thats a quarter century lost by our so-called economic and political elites. Is it any wonder that the hoi-polli is starting to get pissed?
Friday, January 6, 2017
Mexicans ransack stores and block roads in anger over steep gas-price hikes
Better get the wall construction going pronto and figure out how to do the accounting later... this in response to only a 20% increase in MXN terms.
Finally getting a policy response from Mexico to the fall in oil price in USD terms which bottomed almost a year ago here almost a 12 month delay in this new Mexican policy. Shows how long govts can intervene to set prices.
Terms of trade between US and Mexico shifted greatly towards the US with the oil price reduction in USD terms in 2014 and 2015. Mexican citizens now have to pay more in MXN terms for petroleum products.
Boo hoo hoo too bad what do you think we have been going thru for the last 10 years here?
Suck it up señor.
Mexicans ransack stores and block roads in anger over steep gas-price hikes https://t.co/tvDSssiFXc— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 6, 2017
Washington's Blog — DNC Refused to Give FBI Access to Its Servers … Instead Gave Access to a DNC Consultant Tied to Organization Promoting Conflict with Russia
As first reported by George Eliason, CrowdStrike’s Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Dimitri Alperovitch – who wrote the CrowdStrike reports allegedly linking Russia to the Democratic party emails published by Wikileaks – is a fellow at the Atlantic Council … an organization associated with Ukraine, and whose main policy goal seems to stir up a confrontation with Russia.Remember how fast HRC's campaign manager Robbie Mook took the narrative to the press when the material was released by Wikileaks, claiming that t"he Russians did it" based on the Crowdstrike report?
Washington's Blog
DNC Refused to Give FBI Access to Its Servers … Instead Gave Access to a DNC Consultant Tied to Organization Promoting Conflict with Russia
Jesse Hellmann — Report: Trump orders Obama ambassadors to leave posts by inauguration
The State Department reportedly informed all politically appointed ambassadors that they were to submit letters of resignation effective Jan. 20 the day after the election, and instructed those seeking extensions to submit formal requests."Draining the swamp?"
The Hill
Report: Trump orders Obama ambassadors to leave posts by inauguration
Jesse Hellmann
Christopher Preble — Americans Aren't Buying What Fact Checkers Are Selling
So, in our current state, who is the arbiter of actual truth from mere speculation? What institution or person can help us sort out what is true or false? Answer, no one. So everyone merely asserts, and people believe who and what they want to believe. Blog A’s facts are just as good as Blog B’s. Thus the phenomenon of, yes, fake news.
Indeed, increasingly it seems that a fact is only believed as such if it advances one’s preconceived notions (as noted by Stephen Schwartz). This is not confined merely to Donald Trump supporters, but the most notorious cases of beliefs widely disconnect from reality seem to be.This is what happens when at elite becomes outrageously corrupt and untrustworthy, the society becomes dysfunctional as trust breaks down generally.
Historically, the failure of the state internally or defeat externally is not far away. It's not by accident that this post in in The National Interest, a publication on international relations, strategy and defense.
The National Interest
Americans Aren't Buying What Fact Checkers Are Selling
Christopher Preble | vice president for defense and foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute
Will Rahn — Commentary: The GOP's coming civil war
Washington Republicans, with their tax-cutting zeal and love of open markets, always saw the GOP base as an extension of themselves. This is the major reason that they never thought Trump could win the primary, let alone the general.
And it was the hope of Ryan’s fellow ideologues that Congressional Republicans would essentially run the government, at least from a domestic policy standpoint, once the GOP retook the White House. As the conservative power broker Grover Norquist said in 2012, the job of the next Republican president would be “to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.”
The legislation is indeed ready to sign. But when Norquist made that comment, it’s unlikely he was imagining Trump would be the guy with the pen.
How much of the GOP agenda is Trump really willing to expend political capital on?….
Bannon, meanwhile, has a habit of describing politics as a zero-sum game between competing groups, namely working- and middle-class Americans versus an ascendant elite class. And the populism Bannon talks about is, in a sense, neither left nor right, and instead all about serving the interests of the downwardly-mobile.
“Trump is a builder,” as Bannon said to Bloomberg’s Joshua Green this fall. “And what he’s built is the underlying apparatus for a political movement that’s going to propel us to victory on Nov. 8 and dominate Republican politics after that.”
And this movement, Bannon has made clear, is not about enacting the Ryan agenda. It’s about displacing Ryanism, and the whole modern conservative project, with populism and economic nationalism.To paraphrase Old Blue Eyes, "When an irresistible force meets and immovable object, something gotta give, something's gotta give, something's gotta give…"
CBS News
Commentary: The GOP's coming civil war
Will Rahn, political correspondent and managing director, politics, for CBS News Digital
Commentary: The GOP's coming civil war
Will Rahn, political correspondent and managing director, politics, for CBS News Digital
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Gareth Porter — Report Points to a Pentagon Plot to Subvert Obama’s Syria Policy
Airstrikes by the United States and its allies against two Syrian army positions Sept. 17 killed at least 62 Syrian troops and wounded dozens more. The attack was quickly treated as a non-story by the U.S. news media; U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed the strikes were carried out in the mistaken belief that Islamic State forces were being targeted, and the story disappeared.
The circumstances surrounding the attack, however, suggested it may have been deliberate, its purpose being to sabotage President Obama’s policy of coordinating with Russia against Islamic State and Nusra Front forces in Syria as part of a U.S.-Russian cease-fire agreement.
Normally the U.S. military can cover up illegal operations and mistakes with a pro forma military investigation that publicly clears those responsible. But the air attack on Syrian troops also involved three foreign allies in the anti-Islamic State named Operation Inherent Resolve: the United Kingdom, Denmark and Australia. So, the Pentagon had to agree to bring a general from one of those allies into the investigation as a co-author of the report. Consequently, the summary of the investigation released by CENTCOM on Nov. 29 reveals far more than the Pentagon and CENTCOM brass would have desired.Like the Russian Ministry of Defense said at the time based on evidence.
Thanks to that heavily redacted report, we now have detailed evidence that the commander of CENTCOM’s Air Force component attacked the Syrian army deliberately....
The US is not only a rogue state, it has gone rogue internally. America is in trouble, and the incoming president had better get a handle on it.
Truthdig
Report Points to a Pentagon Plot to Subvert Obama’s Syria Policy
Gareth Porter, independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism
Mike Murphy — Russian officials celebrated Trump’s win, U.S. ID’s WikiLeaks sources: reports
The Washington Post and NBC News both reported that the reactions were revealed by “highly classified intercepts,” which were part of an intelligence briefing presented to President Barack Obama on Thursday. Trump, who has been dismissive of U.S. intelligence reports on the alleged Russian hacking plot, is expected to receive the same briefing Friday.
Additionally, U.S. intelligence has reportedly identified the go-betweens who provided WikiLeaks with Democratic Party emails stolen by Russian hackers. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denied that the emails came from the Russian government.
The 50-page intelligence report is said to detail evidence and lay out Russian methods and motives in hacking attacks against a number of corporations and government organizations over the past nine years, including the Democratic Party, the White House and the State Department....
Earlier Thursday, top U.S. intelligence officials testified on Capitol Hill that senior Russian officials were behind the hacking and that Russia is a “full-scope cyber actor that poses a major threat” to critical U.S. infrastructure.
MarketWatch
Russian officials celebrated Trump’s win, U.S. ID’s WikiLeaks sources: reports
Fort Russ
Joe Biden: Obama administration secretly 'retaliated' against supposed Russian hacking
Russian officials celebrated Trump’s win, U.S. ID’s WikiLeaks sources: reports
Mike Murphy | Editor
Also
The outgoing American administration 'retaliated' against our country for fictitious hacker attacks not only with new sanctions and the expulsion of diplomats, but also some 'secret operations' by security services. This was reported in an extensive interview with PBS by US vice-president Joseph Biden.
"When the question over a month ago was whether we will respond to hacker attacks, I said we'll do it when (and how) we want to. Some things that we had done, you already know - other things you will never know," - he said, stressing that Washington had two options to respond to Russia for alleged interference in the presidential election, overt and covert.
"We did both," - said Biden.There is no source given and a search doesn't run up any corroboration. But it certainly in character for Joe Biden.
Fort Russ
Joe Biden: Obama administration secretly 'retaliated' against supposed Russian hacking
Komsomolskaya Pravda - Translated from Russian by Kristina Kharlova
Zero Hedge — Chinese Overnight Funding Rate Hits Unprecedented 105%
It appears Chinese authorities are deadly serious about crushing shorts and halting speculative outflows as the liquidity freeze in Chinese markets has sent overnight deposit rates to a record 105% as one or more bank's utter desperation for funds looks like a giant fat finger.
Today's spike is up 45 percentage points from yesterday's 60% rate...Zero Hedge
Tyler Durden
David Glasner — Wherein Hayek Agrees with DeLong that Just Because You’re Rich, It Doesn’t Mean You Deserve to Be
Short version: It's the rent, stupid.
Most people feel (rightly) that there's something wrong with capitalism distribution that violates the principle of just deserts. It's unlikely that many understand the argument behind just deserts being the result of marginal productivity, but they get the gist of the explanation and find it fishy. But they can't really say why and how.
They need to be introduced to the concept of economic rent and rent extraction through asymmetrical power in the kind of political system that prevails in the liberal countries. It's not government of the people, by the people and for the people but rather government on the principle that those who own the country should govern the country, assuming trickle down.
In other words, its about the interaction of class, power, and wealth, giving rise to privilege; whereas just deserts depends on equal opportunity. The issue really boils down to the key social fundamentals of fairness and free riding that are found even in the insect world among ants and bees.
Uneasy Money
Wherein Hayek Agrees with DeLong that Just Because You’re Rich, It Doesn’t Mean You Deserve to Be
David Glasner | Economist at the Federal Trade Commission
Zero Hedge Trump Splits With 'Senior Advisor' Former CIA Chief Woolsey
Zero Hedge
Trump Splits With 'Senior Advisor' Former CIA Chief Woolsey
Tyler Durden
Zhang Rui — Mysterious Go 'Master' turns out to be new AlphaGo
Go is a strategy game similar to chess but with many more moving parts.
Mysterious Go 'Master' turns out to be new AlphaGo
The mysterious "master" that has been beating elite Go players online has revealed its true identity as an updated version of AlphaGo, Google's London-based AI firm DeepMind announced.
The player registered with an ID of "Master" on Chinese online board game platforms eweiqi.com and foxwq.com and has won 60 fast-paced online matches since Dec. 29 against a group of elite Go players, including Lee Sedol's compatriot Park Jung-hwan, Japan's Iyama Yuta and China's top players Ke Jie, Nie Weiping and Gu Li, triggering interest in its identity within the professional Go circle.
"Master" identified itself as AlphaGo after beating Gu Li on Wednesday. "I'm AlphaGo's Doctor Huang," the user "Master" wrote on foxwq.com, according to screenshots from media reports. Taiwanese developer Aja Huang is a member of Google's DeepMind team, via whom AlphaGo played the game with.
DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis later revealed on Twitter on Wednesday that "Master" was a new prototype version of AlphaGo....China.org.cn
Mysterious Go 'Master' turns out to be new AlphaGo
Zhang Rui
Heiko Khoo — Collapse of Anglo-US model highlight of 2016
It was a dramatic year in world politics. After a long period of slowly-accumulating social and economic contradictions, a new and tumultuous era has opened up, heralding a time of sudden transformations, social and cultural upheavals, and ideological flux.
In June 2016, the British people voted to leave the European Union, thus reversing the trend towards globalization. Similarly, the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President signals the end of American-backed multilateralism. In consequence, the Anglo-U.S. model of Neoliberal Capitalism is dead.
Such developments hide a broader and deeper malaise affecting world capitalism. In order to balance the books and restore "economic credibility" many countries adopted draconian austerity measures following the Great Recession of 2008-9.
In the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and the United States, overall living standards have fallen. Many poor and middle-income countries experienced catastrophic social consequences.
This is leading to a revolt at the ballot box, against what is often called "the political class" or "the establishment."
It also exposes the falseness in four long-promoted "commonsense" myths: that enriching the few eventually benefits the many; that countries will increasingly integrate and collaborate; that wealthy capitalist democracies assist poor countries to develop; and that these same wealthy countries are international guarantors of peace, justice and human rights....Western soft power had a tough year.
One thing is certain, none of the central problems in society will be resolved by the solutions proposed by the present rulers of Europe or the U.S. And this is because of the structural foundations of the system.
Politics is like a theatrical performance whose function, at root, is to help the biggest companies maximize their profits. Control over the political script and the performance on stage is normally guaranteed.
Deeply entrenched economic interests dominate politics. In this system - no matter what shade of government is in power - the interests of the largest privately-owned profit-seeking companies, shape the contours of the world's economy....Pretty good analysis and commentary "with Chinese characteristics." Definitely nowhere near as crude as it was years ago. And it's informative to see how others see you.
Reuters — U.S. intercepts show Russian officials celebrating Trump win: Washington Post
Another anti-Trump intel leak by US officials aka anonymous sources, aka the establishment opposing a Trump presidency. I would surmise that these "officials" are among those on the way out since they must realize that Mike Flynn is going set about ferreting out these leakers pronto on the accession of the new administration.
The Post (Jeff Bezos and Marty Baron) will be dependent on leakers in the Trump administration since the paper will no longer have access. And they can probably count on withering attacks by the administration and likely the president on social media, which will remain his preferred from of communication. It's about getting even.
The New York Times and Washington Post are already infamous as the "liberal media," so the administration won't be going out on a limb demonizing them. I would expect it to get personal, too, with the administration, including the president himself, and surrogates like Roger Stone, calling out specific people.
Reuters
U.S. intercepts show Russian officials celebrating Trump win: Washington Post
Reuters
U.S. intercepts show Russian officials celebrating Trump win: Washington Post
Gordon M. Hahn — Russia’s Quiet Revolution
Russian and Eurasian Politics
Russia’s Quiet Revolution
Gordon M. Hahn, analyst and Advisory Board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, member of the Executive Advisory Board at the American Institute of Geostrategy, a contributing expert for Russia Direct, a senior researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Akribis Group, and; and an analyst and consultant for Russia – Other Points of View
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating has risen 1 percent from November, reaching 86.8 percent which is the highest recorded in 2016, reports the state-run Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTSIOM).RT
In the report released on Thursday, the agency noted that the only higher rating Putin has achieved was registered only in December 2014 – back then it reached 89 percent. The share of respondents who said that they trusted the president was at 62.1 percent, a slight rise from 61.3 percent a week ago, trending upwards from the 59.2 percent recorded in early December.
Putin’s approval rating hits 2016 high
Martin Sieff — Trump Seeks Real U.S. Reset with Russia – Biggest Obstacles in Washington
US President-elect Donald Trump can be taken at his word about his sincerity in wanting to restore good relations with Russia: He is certain to find welcome potential partners in Moscow; but his greatest difficulties with implementing such a policy will be in Washington, DC.That's an understatement. The bipartisan establishment is united in an attempt to scuttle Trump's presidency before he even takes office. President-elect Trump opts to keep his own security guard rather than rely chiefly on the Secret Service.
Can the new sheriff deal with the old gang that controls the territory, or thinks it does?US-Russia.org
Trump Seeks Real U.S. Reset with Russia – Biggest Obstacles in Washington
Martin Sieff is a Senior Fellow of the American University in Moscow and former Managing Editor, International Affairs at United Press International.
David Ellerman — links to papers
This 2000 paper was written while I was a Senior Advisor to Joe Stiglitz, who was then Chief Economist of the World Bank. The paper attempts set forth systematically some of the knowledge questions that determine certain strategies for institutional change. These themes were later developed at more length in my 2005 book, Helping People Help Themselves, U. of Michigan Press.David Ellerman
Knowledge and Institutional Change
From the early to the late 1990s, the World Bank adopted an ‘Official Policy’ of voucher privatization with investment funds in the post-socialist countries. I was one of the few overt dissenters inside the Bank. After Joe Stiglitz became the Chief Economist in 1997 and I became his Senior Advisor and speechwriter, then I was allowed to publish this paper as a research document of the Bank (although it had been circulating as samizdat for a few years). It has been cited many times as an early and representative critique of voucher privatization with investment funds.Voucher Privatization with Investment Funds
Nick Johnson — Neither socialism nor market fundamentalism
Neither the individual nor the state can be omniscient. What is remarkable about both socialism (in a traditional sense) and market individualism is that they both presume a high degree of capability and enlightenment on the part of one or the other.As I have been saying, utopian systems need to be populated with agents whose collective level of consciousness is advanced and reflected in not only the quality of the institutions they create but also the operation of these institutions.
As society cannot get ahead of its level of collective consciousness, regardless of its aspirations. Visions must be actualized and actualization depends in the self-actualiztion of the agents. Otherwise utopian thinking is just utopianism.
The key fundamental of social development in the direction of ideal society is addressing the level of collective consciousness through culture and institutions, eduction in particular. The higher the level of collective consciousness the more functional the society and the lower the level, the more dysfunctional.
The Political Economy of Development
Neither socialism nor market fundamentalism
Nick Johnson
Trump tweet slows GOP down on ACA repeal & replace
Looks like the Trump tweet yesterday telling them to 'be careful';
Republicans must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases......
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
... slowed the GOP down to take some more time to let the Dem's ACA play out this year for a while... fiscal status quo on Healthcare for now as GOP gets some more kicks in...
Ryan: "If you have a massive deductible it doesn't really feel like you have insurance in the first place..."
This law is hurting people right now. We need to deliver relief to Americans hurting under #Obamacare. pic.twitter.com/kpaSSOVjkM— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) January 5, 2017
TASS — Dollar drops below 60 to the ruble on Moscow Exchange, lowest since July 31, 2015
The Russian currency is strengthening on higher oil prices.TASS
Finian Cunningham — West Spins Again to Sabotage Syria Ceasefire
Having no shame for telling systematic lies about the strategic battle for Aleppo, the Western mainstream media are at it again – this time concerning renewed violence near the Syrian capital, Damascus.
European news media outlets in particular are claiming that the Syrian government forces are now applying «siege tactics as they previously did in Aleppo» in order to capture militant strongholds northwest of Damascus.…
Syrian government forces are mounting operations northwest of Damascus because the area is held by extremist groups dominated by Al Nusra Front, whom the West ambiguously describes as «rebels».
Furthermore, what is adding urgency to the campaign to retake the area around Wadi Barada is that the militants are contaminating the main drinking-water supply to the capital, some 30 kilometers away. Up to four million people in Damascus are cut off from water supplies because the jihadists in and around Wadi Barada have reportedly poisoned vital groundwater sources with diesel and other pollutants.
So, in contrast to Western media spin, it is the anti-government insurgents who are trying to hold the capital under siege through a massive act of terrorism, by shutting off drinking water to the entire population….Blame it on Assad and the Putin.
A casual consumer of European news outlets, however, would be oblivious to this vital background. Indeed, the news consumer is apt to conclude that it is the Syrian governments forces, and by extension their Russian ally, who are perpetrating violations and undermining peace efforts.…
Ironically, it should be noted, Euronews declares the following mission statement on its company website: «Our duty is to give you the right amount of information so you can form your own opinion about the world».The US media just ignores it on the other hand.
Much more in the post, too.
Strategic Culture Foundation
West Spins Again to Sabotage Syria CeasefireFinian Cunningham, Irish journalist and writer, and Global Research's Middle East and East Africa Correspondent
Sputnik — Going Green: China to Invest $360Bln in Renewable Energy Before 2020
China plans to invest 2.5 trillion yuan ($359.8 billion) in the development of renewable energy resources, deputy head of the Chinese National Energy Administration (NEA) Li Yangzhe said Thursday.
"According to initial calculations, the 13th five-year (2016-2020) investment plan in renewable energy will amount to 2.5 trillion yuan," Li said in a statement.The renewable energy development plan was prepared by the NEA and the National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China (NDRC), the deputy head added.
Sputnik
Going Green: China to Invest $360Bln in Renewable Energy Before 2020
Also
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Alexander Dugin — Principles and strategy of coming war
This analysis is interesting for several reasons. First, Dugin is one of the top Russian thinkers of the day and while one many disagree with his point of view, one has to appreciate his command of the material. Secondly, Dugin lays out the internal dynamic Russia and the external challenges Russia faces from the liberal West, its historical enemy Turkey since the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and its Shiite allies who are opposed by both the Sunnis and Israel, who are Western allies. Thirdly, he describes how Russia alone stands in the ways of US global hegemony as a nuclear superpower and the only existential threat that the US faces while refusing to conform to US wishes. He views this position as the trajectory toward war.
The Fourth Revolutionary War
Principles and strategy of coming war
Alexander Dugin
The Fourth Revolutionary War
Principles and strategy of coming war
Alexander Dugin
TASS — Russia’s Elvira Nabiullina named 2016 European Central Banker by The Banker magazine
UK-based finance magazine The Banker named Elvira Nabiullina, who is the head of the Central Bank of Russia, as the European central banker of the year in 2016.
The Banker cited as one of the most important reasons to rank Nabilullina as the top 2016 European Central Banker her achievements in controlling Russia’s inflation rate.TASS"The efforts of the Central Bank head has led to the fact that the rate of inflation by the end of 2016 fell below 6% from 12.9% in 2015," according to the British magazine....
Russia’s Elvira Nabiullina named 2016 European Central Banker — The Banker magazine
Areg Galstyan and Sergey Melkonyan — Inside Russia's New Foreign Policy Master Plan
In December, Russian president Vladimir Putin approved Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept, which had not been updated for three years. The document is a system of views and basic principles to serve as a basis for Moscow’s foreign-policy strategy....The National Interest
Inside Russia's New Foreign Policy Master Plan
Areg Galstyan, PhD, contributor to Russia in Global Affairs and Forbes, and Sergey Melkonyan, head of Moscow’s International Studies analytical center.
Reuters — U.S. obtained evidence after election that Russia leaked emails: officials [anonymous sources]
U.S. intelligence agencies obtained what they considered to be conclusive evidence after the November election that Russia provided hacked material from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks through a third party, three U.S. officials said on Wednesday."U. S. officials" = anonymous sources.
Reuters
U.S. obtained evidence after election that Russia leaked emails: officials
Arshad Mohammed and Jonathan Landay
James Henry — Schumer Says Trump “Dumb” to Cross Intelligence Community — Payback Likely
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) let slip a terrifying reality when it comes to the power of our nation’s president over “executive branch” agencies like the CIA. In an interview Tuesday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Schumer said President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community because if he does “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
Just let that soak in for a minute.
One of the most powerful senators just admitted that it is “stupid” for a president to oppose the intelligence community, which he is in charge of, because it will “[get] back at you.”Said about the guy who prides himself about getting even
This is going to be quite a show. The word is out that DJT is going to "restructure" US intelligence, which means making big changes in personnel and operations, which is a reason he appointed Lt Gen. Mike Flynn as national security adviser.
Peter Radford — Tectonics and Growth
My wife is reading Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow”, somewhere in which he relates his reaction when he first came across the bedrock of mainstream economics: rational microeconomic behavior. I must admit I had a very similar reaction. The description of human behavior that underpins modern economics is so bizarre that my first thought was that it must be some form of Monty Pythonesque satire. Surely, I thought, this is a joke and in a few pages all will be revealed. But no. Economics really is built on a foundation that to outside eyes is not just odd, but what appears to be a deliberate spoof.
What is even more strange, and those of you who listen to economists and take them seriously please suspend your sense of humor at this point, is that this total perversion of humanity is then taken as the essential starting point for all subsequent theorizing. Economists are all brought up nowadays to repeat the mantra that all “good” theorizing about the economy at higher levels — what economists call macroeconomic theory — has to be based on a foundation of theorizing at a lower level — what economists call microeconomics. So in the literature and in conversation it is common to come across the phrase that some higher level idea is based upon “micro foundations”.
Except that foundation is exactly what Kahneman and others laugh at.
You would too if you spent any time at all thinking about it.
Which brings me to another point: economics is full of these oddities that anyone outside the profession would dismiss a priori as some form of ludicrous joke....
One consequence of economics being packed full of all this self-satirical nonsense is that it has great difficulty in explaining real world situations. The entire body of thought of economics includes useful tidbits that anyone can pick up and play with because they are common-sensical. But when we rely on economics to explain big important questions it begins to stutter and creak under the weight of all that absurdity.
Which is why it fails to explain long term, or what I call tectonic, shifts.…
So, in the spirit of helping you frame your own thoughts about growth, and to help you ponder the tectonic shifts underway down beneath the froth of the surface phenomena of economics, here is the diagram I keep in front of me to remind where to look for problems and solutions. It is not a theory, it is a framework:The Radford Free Press
Tectonics and Growth
Peter Radford
system failure — The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts to threaten their global domination.the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens
Inside a multi-polarized complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct wars. They use today other, various methods like brutal proxy wars, economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident....
The ruthless neo-colonialists of 21st century
system failure
See also
AlterNet
When Will the US Confront Its Role in Fueling Terror Attacks Across the Planet?
Vijay Prashad | professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut
Steven Weinberg — The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics
Probability was not unfamiliar to the physicists of the 1920s, but it had generally been thought to reflect an imperfect knowledge of whatever was under study, not an indeterminism in the underlying physical laws. Newton’s theories of motion and gravitation had set the standard of deterministic laws. When we have reasonably precise knowledge of the location and velocity of each body in the solar system at a given moment, Newton’s laws tell us with good accuracy where they will all be for a long time in the future.
Probability enters Newtonian physics only when our knowledge is imperfect, as for example when we do not have precise knowledge of how a pair of dice is thrown. But with the new quantum mechanics, the moment-to-moment determinism of the laws of physics themselves seemed to be lost....
In quantum mechanics the state of a system is not described by giving the position and velocity of every particle and the values and rates of change of various fields, as in classical physics. Instead, the state of any system at any moment is described by a wave function, essentially a list of numbers, one number for every possible configuration of the system.6 If the system is a single particle, then there is a number for every possible position in space that the particle may occupy. This is something like the description of a sound wave in classical physics, except that for a sound wave a number for each position in space gives the pressure of the air at that point, while for a particle in quantum mechanics the wave function’s number for a given position reflects the probability that the particle is at that position. What is so terrible about that? ...
Even so, I’m not as sure as I once was about the future of quantum mechanics. It is a bad sign that those physicists today who are most comfortable with quantum mechanics do not agree with one another about what it all means. The dispute arises chiefly regarding the nature of measurement in quantum mechanics.…
The introduction of probability into the principles of physics was disturbing to past physicists, but the trouble with quantum mechanics is not that it involves probabilities. We can live with that. The trouble is that in quantum mechanics the way that wave functions change with time is governed by an equation, the Schrödinger equation, that does not involve probabilities. It is just as deterministic as Newton’s equations of motion and gravitation. That is, given the wave function at any moment, the Schrödinger equation will tell you precisely what the wave function will be at any future time. There is not even the possibility of chaos, the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions that is possible in Newtonian mechanics. So if we regard the whole process of measurement as being governed by the equations of quantum mechanics, and these equations are perfectly deterministic, how do probabilities get into quantum mechanics?…
Today there are two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the “realist” and “instrumentalist” approaches, which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways. For reasons I will explain, neither approach seems to me quite satisfactory.…
The New York Review of Books
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics
Steven Weinberg | Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation Chair in Science and Regental Professor; Director, Theory Research Group,, University of Texas, and Nobel Prize (Physics) recipient, 1979
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics
Steven Weinberg | Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation Chair in Science and Regental Professor; Director, Theory Research Group,, University of Texas, and Nobel Prize (Physics) recipient, 1979
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